Tag Archives: Microsoft Hosting

If a customer has 4 x SQL Server Standard (8 cores), does that mean I will also need to have 4 x SQL-SAL?

There’s no server + CAL model in SPLA. You license either per core or per user depending on the product. Remember, SAL is not licensed per server, but for each user that has access to that server. Your question indicates you might believe a SAL is licensed per server which is not true.

2. Is MSDN available through SPLA? Is it through Azure?

MSDN is not available in SPLA, but you can license the individual components through SPLA. If an end-user would like to bring their MSDN license over to your datacenter, you must dedicate the solution for your customer. Yes, Amazon must play by the same rules. Oddly enough, Azure (which is shared) does allow MSDN to be transferred over to their datacenter.

3. I received an audit notification. Should I respond?

Yes. But don’t work on their time, work on yours.

4. If I signed the SCA addendum, do I need to sign the new QMTH addendum?

Unless you are planning on hosting Windows 10 you do not need to sign the new addendum.

As we enter the new FY at Microsoft, I thought I would put together a list of topics that’s on everyone’s mind.

SPLA going away? I don’t think so. There’s too many SPLA partners to make an entire program disappear. I also think this is one of the benefits Microsoft has over all it’s competitors. If a customer wants to have an application hosted in one datacenter and use Azure for disaster recovery – Microsoft wins. If Amazon is running Windows workloads (which they are) they must pay Microsoft for that usage through SPLA. I also think SPLA is a way to move customers to Azure. If you are a SPLA customer who just went through an audit, the SPLA customer might ask themselves why they continue to host at all? Let’s use Azure and my compliance problems go away. (they don’t but that’s for another article).

Is CSP/QMH really a must? I guess the jury is still out (it hasn’t even launched yet for the partner community – September 2017). There are a lot of restrictions to this program to consider – underlying Windows Pro licenses, becoming CSP direct authorized, not using CSP Indirect, RDS licenses when deploying VDI, etc. If you decide to go down this route, pay close attention to what you can and cannot do.

Will SPLA pricing increase? Yes. No doubt about it. Nothing stays the same for too long.

How can AWS win the cloud war? Amazon has a revenue first, profit second mentality in my opinion. Just look at their last earnings report (2017). They can buy their way into the SaaS market at any cost. They are not just a cloud company, they are an everything company. They have the leverage to really get creative with their marketing and win businesses over.

How can Google beat AWS and Microsoft? Google hasn’t scratched the surface with their footprint in the enterprise space. One slip up by the other cloud powerhouses and Google becomes a very attractive offering. Google has the power, the money, and the brand to make headway. Like AWS, they are not just a cloud/software company, they are an everything company. I really think Google will surprise a lot of analyst in the near future with their cloud growth.

How can Microsoft beat them all? Any organization that uses Microsoft software in a hosted environment must pay Microsoft for that luxury. They already have a large footprint and very large customer base to move to Azure. They also have 30k + SPLA partners (estimate) that are being used to sell their solution.

Will SPLA Man be able to afford a nice piece of jewelry for Mrs. SPLA Man? For all the single women who read SPLAlicensing.com, don’t make the same mistake Mrs. SPLA Man made. Poor Mrs. SPLA Man, when I first met her at the bar, she thought SPLA was something I created for the space station. Space Program Living Association. S.P.L.A. – kind of like a home owner’s association but for space. (I am not sure where she got that idea). I do have a cool blog??!

Is the SCA addendum removed now that Microsoft announced the Qualified Multitenant Hoster addendum? Yes. SCA has been removed and replaced with the QMH addendum.

If I have a CSP Indirect/Tier 1 authorization, can I resell Azure Stack but license Windows Server through SPLA? Yes. You will pay the base consumption rate because you A) Purchased the hardware through an authorized dealer and 2) paid for the Windows license through SPLA.

If I am not authorized for CSP, can I still sell Office 365 to my end users? Not in the general sense. What you can do is resell CSP through a distributor or authorized CSP Indirect/Tier 2 partner. You can also partner with a CSP Direct partner to offer the solution. They would resell the actual license but you can provide services on top of it.

I am a SPLA partner who wants to resell Office to my end users. What are my options? You can sell Office through SPLA and include RDS and Windows. You can become CSP Direct authorized and use the QMH addendum mentioned above. You can also use end customer owned Office licenses and host it in a dedicated environment.

Will Microsoft offer QMH for Indirect partners as well? Not at this time. You must be CSP Direct to qualify, not Indirect.

Last month, Microsoft held their annual Hosting Summit in Bellevue, WA. The good news is SPLA is not going away. Last quarter marked the 20th straight QTR of double digit growth for Microsoft SPLA. What is changing is the competitive landscape. Microsoft does not see SPLA partners as a competitor per se, they see SPLA as one of the biggest competitive advantages over other cloud offerings (IBM, AWS, Google, etc). They have over 30,000 SPLA partners worldwide, and they believe they can leverage those 30,000 partners to offer different cloud solutions.

Microsoft is betting big on what they define as “hybrid cloud” and that’s where they see service providers (SPLA) playing a significant part. Hybrid cloud is not just offloading workloads from on premise to another datacenter, it’s about leveraging different technologies to deliver solutions. As an example, late last year Microsoft offered solution called “Azure Stack” You can read about it here.

It’s the same APIs and same code as what Microsoft delivers through Azure. From a licensing perspective, Azure Stack is cheaper through SPLA (Windows) than it would be to pay through consumption. It will be available to offer this summer through the hardware manufacturers but you can download it now to test out.

The other big bet is SQL, and especially around the feature of stretch database. In laymen terms, it’s taking data that is not often consumed and offloading it to the cloud, reducing resources and consumption on servers locally. You can read more about stretch database from our friends at MSDN

All said, it was good to meet old friends and say hello to new ones at this event. If you were at the hosting summit and you did not have the chance to meet the infamous SPLA Man, email me at info@splalicensing.com. Would love to learn more about your offerings and how we can work together to make licensing simple.

There’s a rumor that Microsoft will allow a service provider the ability to host Office licenses under Office 365 in a shared cloud environment. Is the rumor true? Yes, it’s true. But with everything in the world of licensing there’s always a catch.

For those that have read my blog for a while know that this blog is not a news source, but an education source. I don’t care about late breaking news, I just want you to get the licensing right, the information right, and be profitable.

So what does Office under Office 365 really mean? Some time ago, Microsoft created a use right titled “Shared Computer Activation” For those playing at home this is code for installing end user Office license from O365 in a shared cloud infrastructure similar to license mobility. In the past, this was only available in Azure. (imagine that). Fast forward to today and Microsoft is opening it up to the service provider channel as well. Good news for you, and even better news for Microsoft. If you would like to use this use right (SCA) you must meet the following criteria:

If you don’t know if you are managed, let me know – I can see if you are. Typically this is for SPLA partners that report not only high SPLA revenue (although not necessarily), but are also strategic in marketing activities with Microsoft. If you are international, let me know and we can look into getting US authorized as well. You can email me at info@splalicensing.com to learn more. I also have a cool powerpoint. (well, about as cool as powerpoint’s can go). Although a bit out dated, here is a good overview as well on SCA: https://technet.microsoft.com/library/dn782860(v=office.15).aspx

Last, I sit on a licensing panel and would love to review the different use cases for this program. Let me know how you may/may not benefit from Shared Computer Activation and we can voice our collective opinion to Microsoft. info@splalicensing.com

There’s also a big change for rental PC’s. Little teaser for an upcoming blog post.

Fail-over server rights do not apply in the case of software moved to shared third party servers under License Mobility through Software Assurance.

Example

Let’s say an end customer purchased a license with software assurance that qualifies for license mobility. Since SA allows failover rights, most service providers (if not all) are under the impression they would get the same benefit in their datacenter as they would on premise. In this example, the end customer transfers a SQL license over to the hoster, the hoster spins up a secondary SQL fail-over server. Given the statement above from the PUR, If they are enabling SQL fail-over they would need a second license under SPLA.

Why is this important?

For starters, compliance. If that secondary server is not properly licensed or your under the assumption that if it exists on premise it must also exist in the cloud you are mistaken.

What about Cold DR?

Doesn’t exist anymore.

What about SQL Failover for SPLA specifically?

SQL SPLA licenses have fail-over rights. Read the SPUR

What about other products for disaster recovery?

The SPUR has specific language around DR, how long the server can be active (non-production), when Windows would need to be reported, etc.

Any workarounds?

SAL for SA – I think this would fit well for DR. Customer can still run the software on premise and spin up a second server in the cloud.

Normal SALs- 1 user SAL license can access multiple servers. Could be another option if the customer is against license mobility.

In the words of a famous hoster “it’s not how you license…it’s how long can you get away with not licensing that really matters” He was audited immediately following that statement.